Monday, August 25, 2008
Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry has been one of my favorite books since the moment I read the last line of the last page. It's one of those books that you keep coming back to in the quiet moments of life when, more than anything, you need a bit of hard-won wisdom to ground you.
Hannah Coulter finds herself old, widowed, and alone. Now, faced with the onset of a new life -- life without Nathan -- she recalls the events that brought her to where she is. She remembers her childhood, growing up on a farm in the tiny community of Port William, Kentucky. She remembers young love and devastating loss. She remembers life during World War II. She remembers raising her children. Mostly, she remembers the never ending changing of seasons. Life has to be lived, a season at a time. Hannah lived it, and now she has a few stories to tell.
This is by no means an explosive book: it's not thrilling, or action packed, or fast-paced. Plot is not the author's primary device. It's through the unique, first-person perspective of Hannah that the story unfolds. The great pleasure of reading this book doesn't come from intricate story lines -- it stems rather from the wisdom and philosophical insight of an ordinary woman who's lived an ordinary life. Using prose that's nothing short of absolutely lovely, Berry lends us Hannah's words in telling her story, in sharing her impassioned opinions, and in showing us life through her eyes.
Hell is a shameful place, and it is hard to speak of what you know of it. It is hard to live in Port William and yet have in mind the blasted and burnt, bloodied and muddy and stinking battlegrounds of Okinawa, hard to live in one place and imagine another. It is hard to live one life and imagine another. But imagination is what is needed. Want of imagination makes things unreal enough to be destroyed. By imagination I mean knowledge and love. I mean compassion. People of power kill children, the old send the young to die, because they have no imagination. They have power. Can you have power and imagination at the same time? Can you kill people you don't know and have compassion for them at the same time?
If you want a novel that will leave you biting your fingernails at the edge of your seat, I wouldn't recommend it. Remember, plot is not the main focus of the author, and for those who aren't used to this style, it can be slow in places. But, regardless, it is a novel that's stirring in a different way. It opens up a window into a world most would otherwise never know, and it does so with an insight and beauty that I find to be rare in most contemporary fiction. Life, love, and everything in-between -- Hannah sees it all, and tells it in a voice so real, and ordinary, and wise, it's like having your own grandmother in the room.
Hannah Coulter is one to put on the bookshelf, because it's definitely one to come back to.
Hannah Coulter finds herself old, widowed, and alone. Now, faced with the onset of a new life -- life without Nathan -- she recalls the events that brought her to where she is. She remembers her childhood, growing up on a farm in the tiny community of Port William, Kentucky. She remembers young love and devastating loss. She remembers life during World War II. She remembers raising her children. Mostly, she remembers the never ending changing of seasons. Life has to be lived, a season at a time. Hannah lived it, and now she has a few stories to tell.
This is by no means an explosive book: it's not thrilling, or action packed, or fast-paced. Plot is not the author's primary device. It's through the unique, first-person perspective of Hannah that the story unfolds. The great pleasure of reading this book doesn't come from intricate story lines -- it stems rather from the wisdom and philosophical insight of an ordinary woman who's lived an ordinary life. Using prose that's nothing short of absolutely lovely, Berry lends us Hannah's words in telling her story, in sharing her impassioned opinions, and in showing us life through her eyes.
Hell is a shameful place, and it is hard to speak of what you know of it. It is hard to live in Port William and yet have in mind the blasted and burnt, bloodied and muddy and stinking battlegrounds of Okinawa, hard to live in one place and imagine another. It is hard to live one life and imagine another. But imagination is what is needed. Want of imagination makes things unreal enough to be destroyed. By imagination I mean knowledge and love. I mean compassion. People of power kill children, the old send the young to die, because they have no imagination. They have power. Can you have power and imagination at the same time? Can you kill people you don't know and have compassion for them at the same time?
If you want a novel that will leave you biting your fingernails at the edge of your seat, I wouldn't recommend it. Remember, plot is not the main focus of the author, and for those who aren't used to this style, it can be slow in places. But, regardless, it is a novel that's stirring in a different way. It opens up a window into a world most would otherwise never know, and it does so with an insight and beauty that I find to be rare in most contemporary fiction. Life, love, and everything in-between -- Hannah sees it all, and tells it in a voice so real, and ordinary, and wise, it's like having your own grandmother in the room.
Hannah Coulter is one to put on the bookshelf, because it's definitely one to come back to.
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